Shining
by amidoh
Summary: He only wanted a normal life, without pain and suffering - but that was not his destiny, and now he must pay the price. Rated for character death and drug abuse, one-shot ficlet.


Disclaimer: I don't own Yu-Gi-Oh, nor do I own the poem that the quotes are from – that poem is "The Marriage of Heaven and Hell" by William Blake.

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_No bird can fly so high, unless he flies with his own wings_

Prozac – that was what the doctor had ordered, along with Pepto-Bismol (but that was for Isis, who was suffering from something with similar symptoms to cholera, and therefore not important). And, of course, paracetamol for the pain.

God damn. So this was the miraculous life that awaited him after he finally escaped from that cursed underground prison, was it? So this was what it was like to be free? With two parasitic personalities existing parallel to him?

Admittedly Mariku was a demonic presence that could not have been stopped, and who now seemed to reside in the Sennen Rod, worthless lump of metal that it was, but Namu? What had possessed him to actually pretend to be someone else? He should have known that, with a Sennen item at his command, that what started out as an alibi would actually come to exist, as Mariku had done years before.

_Expect poison from the standing water._

As he swallowed two of the pills with some stagnant-looking water, no doubt from where Isis had contracted her choleric disease, he meditated on something she had once told him:

"Lies can't exist without the truth, little brother. Lies can't exist without the truth."

Did it work the other way round as well? Did it mean that the truth couldn't exist without lies?

An interesting point. Ra damn, Ra damn.

_If we had not been foolish, others would be so_

Damn, those pills tasted good. They made him retch and cough, they had a vile aftertaste, but something inside him wanted more. Almost automatically he reached for the bottle and took another two, along with a mouthful of yellowed water.

Had his life really become so boring and monotonous that he was subconsciously overdosing himself? That was disturbing.

Silently the small glass container was placed back in the medicine cabinet.

As he closed the gleaming white cupboard, a flash of fluorescent yellow caught his eye and he stared at it accusingly. Why the hell was there a post-it note stuck to the medicine cabinet? He peeled it off and read the words aloud to himself.

_"My name is Malik..."_

What the -? He didn't remember writing that. Mind you, there were huge great voids in his memory from being possessed; sometimes he would be in a place, not knowing why he was there, how he got there or sometimes where he was.

He needed a drink, something strong and preferably with a smaller chance of giving him a colourful, exotic disease than the water. There was the slight problem of him not being legally old enough to imbibe alcohol, but to hell with laws. It's not as though he didn't break them when being possessed by Mariku anyway.

A shooting pain lanced across his stomach and he winced. Godsdamn – that would be the pills, or Mariku having a minor tantrum at the blissfully unaware Namu (as was so often the case – Namu was either unable to hear Mariku's threats or just too damn stupid for them to register).

He had been finding more and more notes around the place now, notes that he had obviously written to himself but that he couldn't remember writing. The messages were never good: "_My name is Malik, this is all my fault_" and "_I'm a murderer_" were two of the most common ones, scrawled in pen, mud, soot or sometimes even blood.

It wasn't possible for him to go on living like this. It was too much of a strain to wake up in the morning and wonder how many people would suffer because of him that day, wonder whether he would end up somewhere with no idea where he was, and no clue how to get back...

To be honest, Namu was easy enough to get along with, usually quiet, and docile. The main problem was Marik, who was as unpredictable as he was evil, striking at the strangest times when it would most hurt the people around him, who would usually be people he didn't want to hurt. The dilemma of what to do had finally proved too much for him.

Another shooting pain in his stomach, a swirling mass of colour exploding in front of his eyes. Leaning heavily on the banister for support, he struggled up the stairs, eventually managing to collapse on his bed.

Well, this was it. Quite possibly a little drastic, but he had considered all his options. At least this would hurt Isis and Rishid less than Marik, surely, because Marik was twisted and evil... at least this way he could apologise in a note...

A swirling darkness was engulfing his sight; the pain in his stomach was almost too much, increasing with every second – but also fading with his vision. At last, he could finally leave this world behind, with its pain and its suffering...

When poor Isis walked in to check on her little brother the next morning, he was already dead, his eyes closed as though sleeping, his face calm and peaceful. The only suspicious thing was an empty paracetamol packet that would usually belong in the medicine cabinet with the Prozac.

There was a small, yellow piece of paper on the headboard by Malik, his last post-it note. It read thus: -

"_No bird flies that high - not even Ra."_


End file.
